Sep 5, 2013 - considered independent prognostic factors for nasopharyngeal carcinoma treated ... NPC is a cancer of the nasopharyngeal cavity that has a.
Feng et al. Radiation Oncology 2013, 8:208 http://www.ro-journal.com/content/8/1/208
RESEARCH
Open Access
Tumor volume is an independent prognostic indicator of local control in nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients treated with intensitymodulated radiotherapy Mei Feng, Weidong Wang, Zixuan Fan, Binyu Fu, Jie Li, Shichuan Zhang and Jinyi Lang*
Abstract Background: To retrospectively analyze whether primary tumor volume and primary nodal volume could be considered independent prognostic factors for nasopharyngeal carcinoma treated with intensity-modulated radiation therapy. Methods: Three hundred sixty-three consecutive nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients who were stage I-IVa+b and treated with intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) in our center from October 2003 to October 2005 were analyzed retrospectively. The predictive ability of gender, age, T and N stage, combined chemotherapy, primary tumor and nodal volume for the 5-year local control (LC), distant-metastasis free survival (DMFS) and overall survival (OS) rate were investigated. Primary tumor and nodal volume were measured based on registration of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) images. The Kaplan–Meier method was used for survival analysis, the log-rank test was used for univariate analyses and the Cox proportional hazard model was used for multivariate prognostic analyses. Results: The mean value of primary tumor and nodal volume were 31.5 ml and 9.7 ml. The primary tumor and nodal volume were respectively divided into four groups for analysis (primary tumor volume: TV1≤20 ml, 20
